


No escape from the storm inside

by frozen_behind_the_scenes



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Movie: Frozen (2013), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 02:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22328707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozen_behind_the_scenes/pseuds/frozen_behind_the_scenes
Kudos: 14





	No escape from the storm inside

It was lukewarm. She didn’t care. She could hear gusts of wind hastening past the cornice of her window.

  
Elsa took another sip of the chocolate and let it rest on her knee. 

  
_Why’d they have to go?_

  
_Why’d they both have to go?_

  
Her parents had left earlier that evening to go settle a trade deal with a neighboring kingdom. They would be gone at least a couple weeks. A couple weeks, a couple weeks, fourteen days, fourteen days. The words taunted her with misery.

  
The candlelight was flickering out in the hallway as the servants began to assuage the somber black that had settled over the kingdom. Elsa made her way to the frosty glass of her window and sat on her window seat, knees tucked beneath her. Behind the walls of the castle, roads and cottages wound through the foothills and onto the cliffs. Through the darkness, steep drops and crags turned into chimeral monsters, like rock-giants surveying Arendelle.

  
Elsa felt cold. An emotional, numbing sort of cold. As she leaned her cheek against the glass she longed to be in the company of others. Without her parents around, the only souls she had left were Kai and Gerda, who were usually occupied with palace chores or entertaining Anna’s nonstop banter. Elsa could somewhat hear the commotion of a dinnertime conversation down the hall, with servants and Anna discussing the day and kingdom affairs.

  
Suddenly, she heard a soft knock on the door—that one was Kai’s.

  
“Your highness, I have your supper. Shall I leave it by your door?” He queried.

  
“One moment!” Elsa called out and made her way to the door. She opened it, just slightly ajar, so that Kai couldn’t see the icy fortress that her room had become in the past few hours, and stepped out. A steaming bowl of bacalao soup and Kai’s sad smile greeted her into the hallway.

  
“You’re very gracious Kai.” She took the tray into her gloved hands. “How is Anna?”

  
“She’s doing just fine, your highness.” He assured her. “We would love for you to join us in the Great Hall.” He gave her a hopeful smile.

  
Elsa shook her head, “Maybe later, I’m not feeling so well. Thank you for the soup.”

  
He nodded in support. Elsa stepped back inside her room and again was hit by a wave of loneliness. She closed her eyes and sighed. She would give anything to be able to have dinner with her sister for just one night. And with a flash, she was back on that warm September night.

  
_“Slow down! Anna!”_

  
_Anna’s head lolled to one side. The pounding, the pounding, WHY WON’T IT STOP. Elsa’s head struck against the ice. Stop the pounding, stop it, stop it please, please stop it stop stop the pounding. The room was dropping temperature. “Elsa! What have you done?!” I can’t I can’t open the door just stop the pounding, please…_

  
_“Slow down!” An ivory streak spilled across Anna’s hair. My nightgown is ripped. Mama just had it made for me. please please make it stop please please it hurts. “Slow down! Anna!” One erroneous blast of ice. I didn’t think it could hurt her I thought my powers were good why why why. “Mama! Papa!”_

  
Elsa woke with a start, shaking uncontrollably, heart pounding in her ears. Her vision was fuzzy. She was curled up on the ground, elbows covering her ears, the bitingly cold stone digging into her left shoulder. A trickle of soup from the broken bowl made its way across the floor, meandering through the groves and soaking her traditional rug. Elsa felt where the soup had burned her hands when she fell down. A blistering abrasion was noticeable on her forearm, sharp, bloody red against her ashen skin.

  
The artillery in her head was beginning to subside and she slowly pushed a hand to the ground. No one had heard the falling bowl. Good. On tremulous legs, Elsa rose and stumbled to her bed. She noticed that her cheeks were dry. She hadn’t cried. She never did.


End file.
